The invention relates to systems and methods for providing information technology (IT) services, and in particular to systems and methods for interconnecting IT service process provider and IT service process customer computer systems.
IT service processes such as incident management, problem management, and service request management processes normally involve interactions between service customers or requesters and service providers. For example, if an end user experiences an incident with an IT system operated by a service process customer (e.g. if the end user encounters an error or other difficulty accessing an email system operated by the service process customer), a service process provider may handle a response to the incident in order to resolve the end user's issue. Such a response may include communications with the end user, and the performance of a sequence of steps on the end user, service process customer, and service process provider systems. In outsourcing situations, service process interactions may occur across company and/or country boundaries. Interactions between different companies may require integrating service process customer and service process provider applications employing different transactions, workflows, and data structures. In some instances, conventional service process integration may require substantial numbers person-days of work for each customer-provider pair. In a business environment characterized by growing service outsourcing volume, the efficiency of establishing and operating service process integration is of growing importance.